Food Fight: School Lunches…

What’s keeping local produce out of school cafeterias?

Author Deborah Geering

If you haven’t eaten in a school cafeteria in a while, you might find yourself both relieved and horrified by its evolution. The ubiquitous Jell-O and canned green beans of yore are gone, but pizza and chicken nuggets still rule. Children as young as kindergartners are allowed to choose burgers and flavored milk (twenty-two grams of sugar per cup, as opposed to twelve grams for plain milk) day after day. Fresh produce—even a simple salad bar—is a rarity. And this in Georgia, which produces more market vegetables than all but three other states in America.

Why, given Georgia’s agricultural abundance, is it so hard to get more of those vegetables into our schools? Read on….